


A study in squalor

by dahlia2



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Drabble, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 21:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18081119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dahlia2/pseuds/dahlia2
Summary: Juno Steel didn't think about what it meant to be happy anymore.(Just a drabble)





	A study in squalor

Juno didn’t think about what it would mean to be happy anymore. He hadn’t in years anyway. What was the point? Disappointment? The terrifying reminder that no, he didn’t have anything to live for anymore.  _ Thank you very much. _

 

Instead, he thought about what it meant to live another day. He thought about the continuous mission after mission that gave his life some semblance of purpose because he was  _ helping people _ . 

Helping people meant that he was a good person. Being a good person meant that he was able to sleep at night without hating himself.

 

Hating himself for what? Well, for anything.

 

When he was seven he watched as Ben stole an eraser from a supply store. It was 50 cent. His mom found out, beat the shit out of Ben, took all of the money he had gotten for Christmas, and subsequently scarred the kid for life.

 

When he was nine, Juno drew on one of his mother’s plates with a sharpie. It was prized china. Her prize, anyways. 

 

Ben got the belt for that one too. 

 

He felt just as guilty for the both of them. Not watching to make sure Ben didn’t snatch something from the store with his distracted hands and also not speaking up when he realized his mom had assumed Ben was the one who had damaged the plate?

 

He felt like he made those kinds of dumb mistakes all of the time, from the moment he  _ could _ make dumb mistakes. The only difference was that the stakes only got higher as he got older.

Erasers? Try finding out your childhood friend stole 50 grand in creds from the government. 

Sharpie on plates? What about the time you got into an accident and despite all the efforts you made to prove otherwise, the police still assumed some kid who wasn’t even there was at fault and not the rabbit that had caused you to slam on your breaks, making the guy behind you slam into your rear and- 

 

The kid got 10 to life. That’s what mattered. No possibility for parole until 5 served.

 

Juno was a fuckup like that. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t save the people he needed to. 

 

So, yeah, he didn’t focus on being happy. He focused on doing things to make up for the guilt that weighed so heavily on his shoulders it threatened to squash him like a Martian cockroach under Rita’s cherry pink, steel-toed “date night” combat boots.  

 


End file.
